The Copper Gauntlet Page 17

  “Right,” Aaron said. “Stand back, Tamara, Jasper.” He reached out a hand and caught Call’s wrist. “Call. Stay.”

  Puzzled, Call stayed, as Tamara, Jasper, and Havoc moved a few feet away. Aaron looked exhausted — Call suspected they all did. The aftereffects of the air magic were beginning to catch up with him, flattening out the adrenaline that had been keeping him going. No twenty-minute nap was going to help. He felt as though he might fall over.

  Aaron took a deep breath and raised the hand that wasn’t holding Call’s wrist. His fingers shone with a black glow. The darkness spilled down like acid, spreading across the ground. Dissolving it.

  Call could feel the pull and tug inside him that meant Aaron was drawing on him to work chaos. Aaron’s eyes were closed, fingers digging into Call’s skin.

  “Aaron?” Call said, but Aaron didn’t react. Soil was churning at their feet, like a whirlpool. It was hard to see what was happening, but the force of it shook the ground. Tamara held on to Jasper to keep upright.

  “Aaron!” For the first time, Call could imagine how the Enemy of Death’s brother, Jericho, had died. Constantine might have gotten so caught up in the magic he was doing that he forgot about his brother until it was too late.

  Aaron wrenched his grip free of Call’s arm. He was breathing hard. The dust of disturbed earth had begun to settle, and Call and the others could see that Aaron had torn a chunk of the ground free, hollowing out a sort of hole, hidden from sight by an overhang of grassy rock.

  “You made us a dirt cave,” Jasper said. “Huh.”

  Aaron’s sweaty hair was stuck to his forehead and when he looked at Jasper, Call thought that he might be seriously considering disappearing him into the void.

  “Let’s rest,” Tamara said. “Call, I know you’re in a hurry to get to Alastair, but we’re all tired and the air magic wiped us out.” She did look a little gray; so did Jasper. “Let’s hide out until we all have our strength back.”

  Call wanted to object, but he couldn’t. He was just too tired. He crawled into the cave and flopped down on the ground. He wished for a blanket … and that was his last thought before he dropped into sleep, falling as quickly and as deeply as if he’d been struck in the back of the head.

  When he woke, the sun was setting in a blaze of orange. Tamara was slumbering beside him, one hand in Havoc’s fur. On Tamara’s other side, Aaron was tossing fitfully, his eyes closed. Jasper slept, too, his jacket wadded up as a pillow beneath his head.

  Call heard a rustling sound outside the cave. He wondered if it was some kind of animal.

  Digging around in his pack, he found a half-eaten candy bar and made short work of it. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been resting, but he knew he felt more awake and alert than he had since they’d embarked on this mission. A strange calm settled over him.

  I should leave them, he thought.

  They’d come far enough. He’d never had friends like this, friends who were willing to risk everything to help him. He didn’t want to reward his friends by leading them to their doom.

  Then Call heard another rustling, closer this time. It didn’t sound like an animal, more like a herd, moving slowly and quietly through the brush.

  He revised his plan rapidly.

  “Tamara, wake up,” Call whispered, poking her with his foot. “Something’s out there.”

  She rolled over and opened her eyes. “Mrmph?”

  “Out there,” he repeated softly. “Something.”

  She poked Aaron and he got Jasper up, both of them yawning and groaning at being awoken.

  “I don’t hear anything,” Jasper complained.

  “Let’s check it out,” Aaron whispered. “Come on.”

  “What if it’s the mages?” Tamara said quietly. “Maybe we should just hunker down?”

  Call shook his head. “If they come in here, there’s nowhere to run. We’re literally backed against a wall.”

  No one could deny that, so they got their stuff and, tugging Havoc along, emerged from the cave. Night was falling.

  “You’ve lost it,” Jasper said. “There’s nothing out here.”

  But then they all heard it, a rustling that came from two places at once.

  “Maybe the mages found us,” Aaron said. “Maybe we could —”

  But it wasn’t a mage that stepped out of the foliage.

  It was a Chaos-ridden human who emerged, slack-faced and staring with coruscating eyes that spun with colors like a kaleidoscope. He was huge, dressed in ragged black clothes. Looking more closely, Call realized they were the remains of a uniform. A ripped, old, mud-stained, blood-soaked uniform. There was an emblem over his heart, but in the gloom, Call couldn’t make out what it was.

  Jasper had gone papery white. He’d never seen one of the Chaos-ridden before, Call realized.

  Call had only long enough to be horrified when another one stepped out to his left. He spun, clutching Miri in his hand, just as a third surged out of some undergrowth to his right. And then another, and another, and another, all pallid and sunken-eyed, a flood of Chaos-ridden coming from all sides.

  The Enemy’s army outnumbered them.

  “W-what do we do?” gasped Jasper. He had grabbed up a stick from the forest floor and was brandishing it. Tamara was shaping a fireball between her hands. They were steady but her expression was panicked.

  “Get behind me,” Aaron ordered. “All of you.”

  Jasper moved behind him with alacrity. Tamara was still working on her fireball, but she was already behind Aaron. Most of the Chaos-ridden were massed on the opposite side of the clearing, staring at them with their whirling eyes. Their silence was eerie.

  “I won’t,” Call said. He didn’t feel afraid. He didn’t know why. “You can’t. I’m your counterweight and I can tell you’re not rested enough. You just used chaos magic. It’s too soon to do it again.”

  Aaron’s jaw was set. “I have to try.”

  “There’s too many of them,” Call argued as the army began to advance. “The chaos will consume you.”

  “I’ll take them down with me,” Aaron said grimly. “Better this than the Alkahest, right?”

  “Aaron —”

  “I’m sorry,” Aaron said, and ran toward them, skidding across pine needles. Tamara looked up from her fireball and screamed.

  “Aaron, duck!”

  He ducked. She threw the fire. It arced over Aaron’s head, landed among the mass of the Chaos-ridden, and exploded. Some of the Chaos-ridden caught fire, but they kept coming. Their expressions didn’t change, even when they fell down, still burning.

  Now Call was more afraid than he could remember being. Aaron was nearing the first line of the enemy army. He held his hand up, chaos beginning to whirl and grow in his palm like a tiny hurricane. It swirled upward —

  The Chaos-ridden reached Aaron. They seemed to swallow him up among them for a moment, and Call’s stomach dropped into his shoes.

  Call started to stumble toward them — and halted. He could see Aaron again, standing stock-still, looking bewildered. The Chaos-ridden were walking around him, making no move to touch him at all, like water parting around a rock in a stream.

  They marched past Aaron, and Call could hear Jasper and Tamara breathing harshly, because the Chaos-ridden were moving in their direction now. Maybe they wanted to take out the weak ones before starting on Aaron. Call was the only one with a knife, although he wasn’t sure how much Miri would help. He wondered if he’d die here, protecting Tamara and Jasper — and Aaron. It was a heroic way to go, at least. Maybe it would prove he wasn’t what his father thought.

  The Chaos-ridden had reached them. Aaron was trying to push his way through, trying to reach his friends. The first of the Chaos-ridden, the huge man with the spiked wristbands, came to a stop in front of Call.

  Call tightened his grip on Miri. Whatever else, he would go down fighting.

  The Chaos-ridden spoke. Its voice sounded like a croak, rusty from disuse. “Mas
ter,” it said, fixing its whirling eyes on Call. “We have waited for you for so long.”

  The first Chaos-ridden knelt down in front of Call. And then the next Chaos-ridden knelt, and the next, until they were all on their knees and Aaron was standing among them, staring at Call across the clearing with a look of disbelief.

  MASTER,” SAID THE leader of the Chaos-ridden (or at least that’s what Call assumed he was). “Shall we kill the Makar for you?”

  “No,” Call said quickly, horrified. “No, just — stay where you are. Stay,” he added, as if he were talking to Havoc.

  None of the Chaos-ridden moved. Aaron began walking toward Call, boots crunching on pine needles. He navigated his way gingerly among the kneeling army.

  “What,” said Jasper, “is going on?”

  Call felt a hand on his shoulder. Whirling around, he saw it was Tamara. She was staring at the Chaos-ridden; she ripped her gaze away from them and fastened it on Call. “Tell us what this all means,” she said. “Tell us what you are to them.”

  It was there in her voice — even if she didn’t know the answer already, she strongly suspected it. Call had thought Tamara would look angry, figuring this out. But she didn’t. She looked incredibly sad, which was worse.

  “Call?” Aaron asked. He was standing only a couple of feet from Call now, but it felt like a long way away. He stood there uncertainly, trying not to look around him at the Chaos-ridden, who remained on their knees, awaiting a command. Call looked over them, some of their bodies young and some old, but none of them beneath fourteen years of age. None of them younger than he was.

  Tamara shook her head. “You were mad at me for lying to you. Don’t lie to us now.”

  There was a torturously terrible pause. Jasper was staring (and still grasping his stick, as if that would protect him). But Aaron was looking at Call hopefully, as if he expected Call to be able to clear all of this up, and that was the worst.

  “I’m the … Enemy of Death,” Call said. The Chaos-ridden made a noise — a sort of long sigh, all of them at once. None of them moved, but it served as an awful testament to what Call was saying. “I’m Constantine Madden — or whatever’s left of him.”

  “That’s not possible,” Aaron said, speaking slowly, as if he thought Call had hit his head too hard. “The Enemy of Death is alive. He’s at war with us!”

  “No, Master Joseph is,” said Call. He stumbled on, through the explanation he’d been given, the one he didn’t want to understand. “The Enemy of Death was dying at the Cold Massacre. He pushed his soul into the body of a baby.” He swallowed. “That baby was me. My soul is Constantine Madden’s soul. I am Constantine.”

  “You mean you killed the real Callum Hunt and took his place,” Jasper accused. Fire ignited in his palm, spreading up the bark of the stick he held until the tip of it burst into flame. It was probably the best display of fire magic Jasper had ever achieved, but he barely seemed to notice. “Quickly — we have to destroy him before he kills us all, before he kills the Makar. Aaron, you have to run!”

  Aaron remained exactly where he was, though, staring at Call with a mix of disbelief and misery. “But you can’t be,” he said finally. “You’re my best friend.”

  The Chaos-ridden leader lurched to his feet. All the other Chaos-ridden rose as well, like an army of puppets. They began to march toward Jasper, passing around Call as if he weren’t there.

  “Wait,” Call shouted. “Don’t! Everyone stop.”

  Nothing happened. The dead-eyed warriors kept coming. They weren’t moving fast, but they were moving steadily toward Jasper, who wasn’t backing away. The flame in Jasper’s hand still burned and there was a terrible look in his eyes, as though he was ready to die fighting. It was a far cry from the Jasper who had complained throughout the trip, the Jasper who whined over minor injuries. This Jasper appeared fearless.

  But Call knew it wouldn’t do Jasper any good. However fearless he was, he couldn’t hold his own against hundreds of Chaos-ridden. Call had been terrified before when they had obeyed him; now he was terrified that they wouldn’t.

  “Stop!” he shouted again, in a ringing voice. “You, who are born of chaos and the void, stop! I command it!”

  They lurched to a stop. Jasper was breathing hard; Tamara was at his side, light burning in her palm. Aaron had moved toward them as well. His heart lurched. His friends, ranged against him.

  “I didn’t know,” Call said, hearing the pleading in his own voice. “When I came to the Magisterium, I didn’t know.”

  They all stared at him. Finally, Tamara spoke. “I believe you, Call,” she said.

  Call swallowed and went on. “Most of the time, it doesn’t even seem possible. I’m not going to hurt anyone, okay? But, Jasper — if you go for me, the Chaos-ridden are going to kill you. I don’t know if I can stop them.”

  “So when did you find out?” Aaron demanded. “That you were — what you are?”

  “At the bowling alley, last year,” Call said. “Master Joseph told me, but I didn’t want to believe him. I think my dad always suspected, though.”

  “And that’s why he threw such a fit when you didn’t flunk out of the Magisterium,” Jasper said. “Because he knew you were evil. He knew you were a monster.”

  Call flinched.

  “That’s why he wanted Master Rufus to bind your magic,” said Aaron.

  Call hadn’t realized how much he had wanted Aaron to contradict Jasper, until he didn’t. “Listen, here’s the part I couldn’t explain, because it wouldn’t have made sense before. My dad doesn’t want to hurt Aaron with the Alkahest. He wants to use it to fix me.”

  “Fix you?” Jasper said. “He should kill you.”

  “Maybe,” Call said. “But he definitely doesn’t deserve to die for it.”

  “Okay, so what do you want, Call?” Aaron asked.

  “The same things I wanted before!” Call shouted. “I want to get the Alkahest and give it back to the Collegium. I want to save my father. I don’t want to have any more awful secrets!”

  “But you don’t want to defeat the Enemy of Death,” said Jasper.

  “I am the Enemy of Death!” Call yelled. “We have already defeated the Enemy! I’m on your side.”

  “Really?” Jasper shook his head. “So if I said I wanted to leave, would you tell the Chaos-ridden to stop me?”

  Call hesitated for a long moment, with Tamara and Aaron watching him. Finally, Call said, “Yeah, I’d stop you.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “We’re too close to the end,” Call tried to explain. “Too close to my dad. He still has the Alkahest. He’s still going to give it to Master Joseph. And Master Joseph won’t use it to kill me; he wants me alive. He’ll kill my dad, he’ll kill Aaron, then who knows what he’ll do after that. We have to finish.”

  He stared at them, willing them to understand. After a long, long moment, Tamara gave a tiny nod. “So, what next?” she asked.

  Call turned to the Chaos-ridden. “Take us to Master Joseph,” Call commanded. “Escort us there, don’t hurt any of us, and do not tell him we’re coming.”

  The Chaos-ridden began to move, flanking Call. Aaron, Tamara, and Jasper were being moved along, herded, surrounded. They walked in a narrow path surrounded by corpse-like bodies; it reminded Call of biblical paintings of the Red Sea parting. There was nowhere to go but in the direction the Chaos-ridden went and no pace to walk but the pace they set.

  They marched through the dark forest in dead silence, the crackle of pine needles underfoot. Havoc marched along happily, at home with others of his kind. With every step, Call felt a terrible loneliness overtake him. After this, there would be no return to the Magisterium. There would be no more friends; no more lessons from Master Rufus; no more meals of lichen in the Refectory or games with Celia in the Gallery.

  At least Havoc would come with him, although Call wasn’t sure where they’d go.

  They walked for what felt like a long time, long en
ough for Call’s leg to ache intensely. He could feel himself slowing down, could feel the majority of the Chaos-ridden slow to keep pace with him.

  So, basically, he was setting the pace.

  Aaron stepped to his side. “You were going to be my counterweight,” he said, and only when he said it in the past tense did Call realize with a sinking heart how much he’d wanted to do it.

  “I didn’t know,” he said. “When I offered.”

  “I don’t want to have to fight you,” Aaron went on. Jasper and Tamara were walking up ahead, Tamara speaking urgently to Jasper. “I don’t want to, but that’s what’s going to happen, isn’t it? That’s our destiny: to kill each other.”

  “You don’t really believe I want to kill you, do you?” Call said. “If I wanted to kill you, I could have. I could have killed you in your sleep. I could have killed you a million times over. I could have chopped your head right off!”

  “That’s convincing,” Aaron muttered. “Tamara!”

  She dropped back to walk with them. Jasper continued to stalk ahead, a few Chaos-ridden alongside him.

  “Why did you say what you said back there?” Aaron asked. “That you believed Call.”

  “Because he tried to flunk out of the Magisterium,” said Tamara. “He really didn’t want to go. If he’d known he was Constantine Madden, he would have tried to get on the Masters’ side, to spy on them. Instead, he just pissed all of them off. Besides,” she added, “Constantine Madden was famously charming, and Call obviously isn’t.”

  “Thank you,” Call said, wincing at the pain in his leg. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could go on without resting. “That was heartwarming.”

  “Also,” Tamara said, “there are some things you can’t fake.”

  Before Call could ask her what she meant, his foot hit a root and he stumbled, falling to his knees. The Chaos-ridden halted abruptly, those in front of Jasper turning and stopping him with their hands to his chest.

  Call groaned and rolled over, trying to stand.

  One of the Chaos-ridden lifted him, holding him as easily as Call himself might have held a cat. It was embarrassing and, even more embarrassingly, a relief. “We will carry you the rest of the way, Master,” the Chaos-ridden told him.